[moonymonkey]

djimb,thnx for the link ,im gonna match up my exsperience with what thread reads and see how i does.peace themoon/

[brendon420]

eat your fan leaves

[Ununionized]

I don't know if I put this idea into this thread, but this one is a real game changer for you, almost no matter who you are, but especially if you

like to grow somewhat hydroponically,

are interested in understanding the science of nutrition better, and need some hands on stuff,

are interested in saving money,

are in an illegal area and don't want lots of products around

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An almost perfect source of micronutrients - and it's free as can be
===========================

Ok this is the long version of this story. Plants been on the Earth awhile. Plants tend to get themselves to do fairly well a lot of areas.

Plants tend to not suffer too much from micronutrient deficiencies around most of the sub-tropical areas of the world.

I'm about to explain to you why, and once knowing this and one or two more things, your life as a plant growing specialist will be changed forever.

(1)The sun comes up every single day over most of the world and when it does, it creates such strong thermals that birds that weigh five, to ten pounds, will soar overhead on these thermals.

You've all seen a dust devil

Well - these things are happening a whole lot more than you ever see, in the sense that very lightweight dust, is drawn VERY far upwards, during a typical day.

Here's an idea of ~about ~ how much dust is in the air by the end of each day. If you pay careful attention you'll notice that the color red, in the sunrise, isn't quite the same color red, in the sun set. The main difference is that every day, when the sun makes a pass over any section of earth, it raises up winds, which in turn lift dust into the air: microscopic dust so fine you can't even see it. LOTS of it. Matter of fact, here's another empirical example of what we're sayin.
Ever notice that anything you leave outside, eventually gets a thick layer of dust on it? Ok, there you go. And ever notice that any time you WASH something that's been outside, there's always a layer of dust on it? Ok that's the stuff we're talking about, again

(2)In order for this dust the sun raises, to be airborne, it has to be a little finer than actual sand. Square or sharp sand, will simply fall out of the sky once the wind slows down.

(3) All over every square centimeter of planetary surface - all over every leaf, all over the bark of every single tree, all over every single blade of grass, over every exposed rock surface, over EVERY exposed surface - this microfine dust settles *every single day.*

(4)When it rains, do you ever notice that the ONE thing you will be counting on is that the water, from the VERY first of the rain, will be so muddy and thick it's almost like coffee?

Ok: these lightweight tiny dusts, have been settling in to the cracks of EVERY bark of EVERY tree EVERY day since the last rain. It's been settling all over every FIELD, over EVERYTHING and there are ton, ton TONS of the stuff laid down over your region e.v.e.r.y.
single day of the year that it's not raining in that area.

(5)These microfine dusts are surprisingly alike, all over the world. Rocks fall off the sides of cliffs and hills and mountains, and dust is formed. And plants all around the world are suprisingly or rather NOT surpisingly - able to use these micro fine particles - they're so small they're classed as "clay size" - in order to aid in uptake of micronutrients.
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(6)There's another source of these micro-fine particles that's at least as big, especially around mountains and hills, and that's just plain old everyday weathering, but a lot of these SUPER finest of pieces of mineral just never make it into the air.
============================== =========================
But every time it rains, huge volumes of this stuff gets washed RIGHT down past the larger sands, and the degrading leaf products on the ground, and they wash RIGHT down a couple of feet into the soil and the stuff lays there and the roots of everything under the sun, * *uptake these tiny minerals through dissolving the already super fine particles with citric acid exuded by roots* *
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(7)And there's a whole lot of this VERY substance that never makes it down into the immediate roots, it gets washed around in the rain water that fills the rivers, streams, ponds and lakes, and it turns that water thick almost chocolate brown.

These products have several names and it's all the same stuff.
River fines,
Pond fines,
Lake fines,
Pond Silt,
River Silt,
Lake Silt.

But it doesn't matter what it's named,
cause you gotta be able to identify it wherever it's found,
and the way it's done is *snap* super simple and easy.

And finding it - once somebody tells ya how to look - is EASY as PIE.

(8)There is a perfectly easy prescription for finding the stuff.

You look for any body of water, where there's a place that water overflows, when the shit really hits the fan, rain-wise.

Even an open field will do.

You need to: find a place that's about... Oh, it varies but basically from about 3 feet, to about 8, 10 feet higher, than the normal water level for that body of water.

All ya do is walk to the water then look around. There are going to be banks on the side of that water, that - ostensibly - hold that water contained, once the water body floods.
And,
within those banks there are going to be a lotta places you specifically remember that - in the winter, when the water rises, some of these areas, are just REPEATEDLY going under water, and then - this is important - the water spreads out so far, it just - slows down to VERY little downstream motion is going on, outside the banks of the lake/river itself.

Where this happens, you're gonna notice.. mmMM.. about three, or four thing.

(a)Nobody will have raked or screened the soil there but *there won't be any gravel.*
Gravel will have fallen out during those winter overflow fests, long, LONG before the water got say.. 5 feet higher, 3 feet higher, than normal. This is important for you to go check that shit yourself. It's true. 3 feet, 5, 10 feet up there won't be any gravel.

It all sank, long, LONG before the water got that high.

(b) There also won't be any what they call 'square sand' or 'sharp sand.' - You know, classical size sand grains that when you rub between your fingerprints, you can feel them rolling around. THIS is important.

(c) There will be a very "Middle Brown" or "Generic Mud" color to the stuff on the ground,

(d)The stuff when dry, dropped from between your fingers, will give evidence of being very dusty - the dustier, obviously - the better.
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Ok - you know how you're always reading about 'fertile river valleys' in books and hearing this on videos? A LOT of this has to do with the fact that river valleys will grow plant, which then die, degrade, and become fertilizer. But the REASON for this repeated capacity to produce plant life is these winter floods, * deposit lots and lots of this microfine silt *

You go out, and you collect this stuff up. You just put it into a bucket, whatever you wanna do, and you bring it home, and you then DOSE it - into your soil OR - into your hydroponic situation, where you're using coco or perlite or just deep water culture, and you'd like to ensure that your plants are ALWAYS able to get their roots on a satisfying source of the

*very nutrition that makes all lake/river/stream overflow areas, fertile, to plants.

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Precautions
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You can't poison plants with this stuff.

But - the stuff is so fine, it's classed as 'clay size' particles. Real clays are those minerals which separate into tiny molecular structures that are flat: but there are a lot of minerals which will produce a similarly sized grain - it just won't be flat, so it doesn't stick together quite so well: but in this mix there IS true clay mineral supplements and these, will enhance the nature of any significant volume of this stuff, to stick together *and not let in air.*

*This is Why*
you always see people warning you, waving you off, not to put in, too darned much of the stuff. From having done this for YEARS I can tell you this: ANY significant concentration of the stuff, unadulterated by some gravel or whatever, to let in air - in ANY system - including a Hempy - the roots that get into THAT little area - maybe a little glob of it the size of a spray can lid or a half cup - inside there, those roots will get root rot. JUST in that anaerobic area where the roots can tunnel through it - but oxygen can't get to that little section of root.

So - if there's any kind of a skill that you've gotta devise, it's to stop this stuff from piling up, building up, bunching up too tight.

And - there are a __blank__load of ways to do it.

You can put it into deep water culture recirculating buckets. You just pop the top on the bucket and sprinkle enough in there, that it'll cover the bottom NO MORE THAN - about a quarter inch deep on the bottom. Any deeper than that - even a full half inch - enough to completely envelop ANY particular root group - there's a significant chance those roots could get some root rot where they're covered so tightly, all oxygen is excluded, and root rot, or pythium class fungi, can get a foothold.

Here are some tricks I've learned.

If you're going to put this into a Hempy bucket, just lay a piece of newspaper down right about where the hole in the bucket is, and pour out about an eighth of an inch of the stuff on the paper. Cover with perlite. Once you put plants into the thing, mix a little of the silt into the water that you feed the seedlings with.

Remember you should be doing a half-ass job of feeding the plants a decent hydroponic diet anyway if you can but- if you can't - you don't need to worry because everything below calcium and sulfur, and iron - this stuff can feed the plants the micronutrients they need.

Without going into it really deep, because there are just SO many WAYS to achieve this - your SOLE prohibition with this stuff is don't you ever let it build up around the roots of the plant to the point where that root material is cut off from oxygen deliverable by the water.

I've put the stuff into beds of wood chips, I've put it into Hempy buckets - all of mine get some - I've put it into dwc systems where you're pumping water through a buncha buckets - you just pour in enough to tint the water a little, and then some - I've put the stuff into aeroponics units, so a little 1/8th inch deep layer settles to the bottom of the place where the roots hang - and of course obviously, it helps to mix some in with the water you pour around the roots of your soil.

One last thing to remember is that - this stuff is not a low-rent, quasi-substitute for the real thing,
that comes out of your expensive bottle.

It's the other way around, in some technical sense or other.

The expensive stuff in your bottle, is a higher dollar version, of the REAL stuff, plants are REALLY designed
to get their micronutrients from.



One more quickie coming up right after this post.